What is a tooltip?
A tooltip is a small contextual card anchored to a specific interface element — a button, a field, an icon — that explains it right where it lives, usually with an arrow pointing at its target. In product onboarding, tooltips are the workhorse surface: the building block of tours and the standard answer to "what does this do?"
Where tooltips excel
Anything whose explanation belongs at a location: introducing the button a new feature ships behind, clarifying a field with non-obvious rules, guiding the next click in a product tour. Because they anchor to the element, the explanation and the thing explained are never separated — which is precisely what a help article can't offer.
The etiquette
- One or two sentences. A tooltip holding a paragraph is a modal in denial — link out for depth.
- Targeted, not broadcast. Shown to the users who plausibly need it (new users, or the segment a feature serves), not everyone forever.
- Dismissible and remembered. "Got it" must mean gone — across sessions and, for identified users, across devices.
- Anchored resiliently. When the target element is missing (different plan, changed layout), the tooltip should skip silently, never point at nothing.
Tooltip vs. hotspot
A tooltip opens itself at the moment you choose; a hotspot waits as a subtle beacon until the user clicks. Tooltips fit guided moments where timing is yours; hotspots fit ambient discovery where the user decides. Both anchor to elements, and both are built without code in modern tooling — placement, targeting, and don't-show-again included.
See the concepts running live.
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